


From Soldier to Soldier

by PompousPickle



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 00:52:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4686029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PompousPickle/pseuds/PompousPickle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where Roland ends up severely crippled instead of dead, he has a favor to ask of Axton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Soldier to Soldier

**Author's Note:**

> As stated, this was based on a prompt where Roland didn't die in Angel's Core (if only) and instead ended up severely crippled and bound to a wheelchair.

Roland looked across the workroom table at Axton, both tinkering away at their respective turrets. They were trying to salvage enough parts to build Roland’s over again. Thanks to the fight in Angel’s Control Core, there wasn’t much left of old Scorpio. Thanks to that fight…

“Hey,” Roland finally said, breaking their companionable silence. Axton was never short for words. But right now, it was hard to get Axton to speak at all. And while Roland was okay with that, he did need to bring up the issue at hand. “I wanted to say thanks. I’d be dead if it weren’t for you.”

Axton looked up and flashed a grin. “That becoming your new motto? You seem to say that to me a lot.”

“It’s true. You and your friends have more than proved yourselves as Vault Hunters. If you hadn’t grabbed my body when Jack grabbed Li…you know,” Roland then finished with an awkward cough. Axton seemed to get the message though.

“Don’t much like seeing my friends die on the battlefield. Got enough of that in the military,” Axton shrugged, stiffened and hardly himself. Or at least, the Axton that Roland was used to seeing. The guns-blazing soldier with a desperate need for glory and fame. Instead, the person who stood before him was a man who had been in the military since he was a teenage boy, and never really knew anything else.

“Axton, I want you to take Scorpio, when he’s done,” Roland said carefully, causing the man to look up with a start. “The turret won’t be much use to me now, with my spine the way it is.”

Axton looked at the man in the wheelchair, and then back to the turrets. “We can fix that. Get Gaige to build you some new contraptions for your legs and Zed will hook you up. Hell, we can add extra guns to it. The seven-million dollar man! But you know…for less money. We’ll have to budget.”

“I appreciate it. But we can do that later. Jack comes first. We need to kill him and stop him from opening that Vault.”

“And get your girlfriend back,” Axton supplied helpfully, tightening a few bolts to Scorpio, making it match the build of Sabre just a little more.

Roland didn’t say anything in response. He had a pretty good idea of what was happening with Lilith now. He could picture it all too clearly. He saw it every time he closed his eyes. Those giant Eridium injectors that held Angel, squeezing every inch of life out of her, forcing her to be dependent on them. But now, Lilith was in the center of all that. And Roland couldn’t even move the lower half of his body, thanks to that bullet Jack put in him. How could he ever hope to save his ex-girlfriend?

“We’ll get her back,” Axton said again, as though gauging Roland for some kind of reaction. But Roland didn’t give one. Instead, Axton went back to his stiff silence before looking at the turret’s build progress. “He’s gonna look a lot like the Missus when we’re done.”

“That sounds like some kind of perverse fantasy for you,” Roland said with a small chuckle, before looking up to see if Axton was laughing as well. He was. “We should give him a new name. Scorpio 2.0, or something. Hardly going to be the same once we’re done.”

“Scorpio _2.0_? Come on, where is your creativity?”

“Didn’t they squeeze that out of you in Dahl? Atlas never had much room for _creative_ minds.”

“What about Gemini? Still a Zodiac thing, and he’ll be a twin for Sabre.”

Roland let the name sink in. Gemini. It wasn’t even going to be his turret anymore. It would be Axton’s. And he could trust the soldier with that. The man saved his life enough already. Hopefully giving him his turret would help return the favor. “I like Gemini,” he finally decided. He paused again and took a breath, looking at the guns and bullets before moving to attach them.  “But before we do this, Soldier, you have to do me a favor.”

“Okay but I’m warning you, the way you’re paralyzed, you might not be able to feel it,” Axton said, making a playful show of unzipping his jacket, before Roland grimaced to stop him. However, it allowed them both to share a laugh. “But yeah, sure. What’s on your mind?”

"I need you to take this turret, and use it to hit Jack where it hurts.,” Roland grunted, realizing that Axton had probably never heard the man talk with such anger before. “And you _get her back_. And you make Jack pay for taking her away. Am I understood?”

Axton blinked for only a second before giving a mock-salute. “Aye, aye, Captain.”


End file.
